I know, I know, we’ve heard it all before; by reading those self books that talk about the art of communication and effective planning – they say it all the time. But it really is amazing what can be achieved through effective organisation, communication and teamwork. I’ve recently had an experience which I thought brought me back to this; Last month I decided to start a Thursday night indoor football team for a bit of fun, fitness and a chance to win a competition! The team was made up of fellow football enthusiasts from the office as well as friends who were keen to get some extra fitness and enjoy a game of football. The game itself is five vs. five and placed in our respective division we had some serious competition amongst us before even thinking of getting to the finals! So in order to succeed, we all got together, turned up on the Thursday night, went out there and gave our best. Unfortunately after the first seven weeks our record hasn’t been great; winning once and drawing once. After each game we would talk amongst one another about what went wrong or what we could have done better but ultimately we knew what the problem was. Put simply, other teams were organised, they communicated more and played as a team, consistently.
So yesterday, we went out to put it right, starting off by organising ourselves and working out how we would play each on the pitch. Second to that we raised our level of communication and the result was an improved level of teamwork, making us far more competitive and had it not been for a late goal by the opposition, we would have been able to settle for a win over a draw – So an improvement and now something to build on. But more importantly it reminded all of us what a little bit of organisation, communication and teamwork can do.
In our jobs day to day we face similar challenges, not striving to reach the finals of a football game but perhaps improving sales results or business performance in general. From my experience applying the same philosophy has always shown better results.
So if you’re in a bit of a form slump, maybe it’s time to look at the team, work out a game plan, communicate better and improve the teamwork.
Good luck reaching the goal!
Tim Hooper – Team Leader